#Aug 22

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

NOFX - Punk Guy

[fragmentedink-archived]

Happy Birthday Nik 🫶🏻

tag list: @incandescent-creativity @idreamonpaper @solangelo3088 @halstudies @livvywrites @lux-scriptum @mecharose

OC Aesthetics: Nikolas Mejias, Anxious Adhd Bisexual Disaster

First they incite the violence

Turn around and then they invite the silence

Burn it down, I think I need some guidance

[msbarrows]

Yeah Anno 1800 is still controlling my brain and eating most of my free time (and some time I should be using for other things, like sleeping). Which means I've once again been skipping out on doing my daily posts, so grrrr at myself since I find having them personally useful (such as for double-checking when I last served something so I don't produce chili out of the freezer twice in one week sort of thing; I'd be fine with that but the brother prefers more variety).

And now I've once again gone a full week since I last posted, and apart from "played Anno 1800, crocheted a little" most days are a blank. At least it's the same save I was working on a week ago so I'm well past any danger of needing to restart from scratch? I'm in a weird mode with it where my income is almost always in the red, but I'm regularly selling excess stuff (some of it pretty valuable) to the NPC traders, and since those are blink-and-you-miss-it spikes of positive income, my actual money on hand has been climbing steadily despite being 'in the red'. I'm now up to almost 30 million in game, and seem to finally be turning the corner to actually earning positive revenue occasionally.

Let's see how much of the last week I can reconstruct:

Aug 20 - Chili and tortilla chips. There may have been a side salad.

Aug 21 - Pretty sure I did potato salad, corn on the cob, and hamburgers. Unless this and yesterday were reversed.

Aug 22 - Divided up a little under 10 lbs of mixed ground beef & pork my brother had bought, into 1 and 1.5 pound amounts in (flattened) freezer bags to freeze. Since there was still leftover tortilla chips, I made a taco salad for supper as a way to also use up the less-than-a-pound of ground meat left.

Aug 23 - Dug out some of the leftover lamb and lamb stock from the freezer and made a barley pottage with it, with carrots and peas mixed in for a veg. Barley and lamb is an awesome combination.

Aug 24 - Pizza for supper.

Aug 25 - Partially cleaned the upstairs bathroom. Did pasta and meat sauce and a Greek style salad for supper.

Aug 25 - Ran and put away three loads of laundry. Baked a loaf of oatmeal bread, except substituting Bob's Red Mill 5-Grain Hot Cereal for the oatmeal; it's also rolled grain, and I wanted to see how it would come out (delicious - had some a bit ago with my evening pills).

Supper was beef curry, barberry rice, and some mixed veggies sauteed in toasted sesame and olive oils.

-

Oh, and some time during the week I hit the 1/3 point with the green acrylic scarf, took a look at how much yarn remained in the ball, and decided it was unlikely to result in a long enough scarf for its excessive width. Frogged it and started over, doing the same pattern but based on sets of three stitches instead of four. It's working out as a much more scarf-suitable width now.

[mistfunk]

Mistigram: Bear with me: in 1986, DJ Tom Roy of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, invented a holiday -- to thwart winter at its height, by yelling "Hoodie-Hoo!" on Feb 20th to frighten it away. Today, conversely, is _Southern Hemisphere_ #HoodieHoo Day, so AdeptApril has drawn a gregarious #ANSIart logo in recognition of the occasion.

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

just a little something for the darling @yournowheregirl to wake up to! it sounds kinda dumb and insignificant, but i always appreciate your tags in the fun tag games that come across your dash and for always being one of the first that ask something from those ‘ask me’ posts i reblog! it makes me feel appreciated and i am super grateful every time 🥰🫶🥹

There was meant to be two beds.

Steve specifically got a double king room for the goblins, and another room with two queens for him and Eddie.

So of course as soon as they got into Milwaukee the night before the D&D themed nerd fest, the (actually very nice) woman at the front desk says: “We had to swap around the rooms, but the two will still sleep all you boys, don’t worry!”

Whatever. That’s fine, right? They’ll all have a spot to sleep the next two nights they’re here for the kids’ (and Eddie’s) dragon game convention.

He gets back to their rented minivan and passes the key cards to Eddie in the passenger seat.

The van was just the first point of contention between him and the kids’ beloved Dragon Meister, followed closely by…everything else.

The first thing Eddie said when Steve showed up in the rented van was “King Steve is coming along on our journey?”, to which Steve could only respond with “This ‘super cool’ guy you assholes have been going on about this whole time is Eddie “The Freak” Munson? Really?”

Following closely behind are: the tapes and tapes of loud garbled ‘music’ Eddie insists on playing, his absolutely tragic way of unwrapping Steve’s burgers for him when they stop for lunch, the wariness Steve has in the first place about this being the guy Dustin wouldn’t stop talking so highly about…this nerdy, obnoxious, third-time senior…great.

“204 is the Hellions’ room, 207 is us.”

Eddie bends an arm backwards into the feral beast enclosure the second two rows have become over the last six hours and Steve’s surprised he still has his hand when it returns to the front.

Steve gets the van parked in the hotel’s garage, and they head up to their rooms.

“Alright, assholes,” he says to the somehow still rambunctious masses, “This is you guys, Make sure you’re up by eight so we—“

“Yeah Steve, we got it,” Dustin scoffs, “As if we’d risk being late to this.”

Steve rolls his eyes with a “Fine, goodnight.” and shuffles the few steps across the hall to his and Eddie’s door, leaving the troops to file into theirs.

The only thought in his head is of laying down and getting the fuck to sleep. It wasn’t even that late but—

“Oh you’ve got to be shitting me.”

So that’s what brings them here. To their one barely queen sized bed.

“I guess I’m on the floor then, huh?”

“I’m not about to let you sleep on the floor.”

“Oh, the King has chivalry does he?” Eddie rolls his eyes and throws his duffle onto the armchair in the corner.

“As much as you, asshole; I just want you to have the energy to corral the gremlins tomorrow.” Steve scrubs a hand down his face. “Look, we’ll just deal with it tonight and I’ll get another room tomorrow.” he lies. As if he’s got the cash for that.

Eddie looks him over, and seems to come to whatever conclusion he needs to because he says “Fine, but you better not be a blanket hog.”

Eddie’s the worst blanket hog Steve’s ever had the displeasure of knowing.

He thought Robin was bad, but this is something else.

Eddie’s fully a burrito within an hour of laying down. After a hearty, but silent, game of tug of war over the worn duvet.

Steve falls asleep angry and cold, and wakes up on a cloud.

He’s so warm and so entangled in the comforter, he can’t help but snuggle deeper into the pillow he’s clutched onto.

The pillow hums back at him and scoots itself under his chin with a sigh.

Steve squeezes tighter onto the pillow momentarily, but his curiosity of why his pillow’s making noise gets the better of him.

He cracks his eyes open, looking down at the thing in his arms.

It shifts as well, and Eddie Munson blinks up at him with those (holy shit…beautiful, deep, dark) doe eyes of his.

“Hi.” Steve breathes.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, and shuffles himself back into Steve’s neck.

Steve chooses to blame the still sleepy bit of him for curving himself back around Eddie.

“How’d you sleep?” Steve whispers into the now-bared hairline under the other man’s bangs.

“Fucking amazing…” Eddie mumbles, snaking an arm over Steve’s waist and settling a hand in the middle of his back. “How ‘bout you, Stevie?”

“Stevie, huh?” Steve chuckles.

It’s only then that Eddie seems to come to his senses, his head shooting up before he scrambles away, falling straight onto his back between the opposite side of the bed and the wall with an “Oof!” and a “Fuck!”

“Oh shit!” Steve shuffles off the bed and helps Eddie back up, ”You alright, Eds?”

“Yeah..yeah, I’m fine..” Steve gets Eddie back on his own two feet and (reluctantly) lets him go once he’s stable.

‘Reluctantly? Why reluctantly? What the hell??’

“Sorry I was all over you, not the greatest thing to wake up to, huh?” Eddie says, huffing a sardonic laugh under his breath.

Steve hums nonchalantly, “It wasn’t all bad, I slept pretty fucking amazing too.”

Eddie hums an acknowledgment, then: “I wouldn’t—“ Eddie starts at the same time Steve says “I should—“

“You go ahead,”

Eddie’s hands come up between them, spinning the rings on his fingers nervously. “I was going to say that…I.. Iwouldn’tmindifyoustayedtonight..too.”

Steve blinks. “Good thing I was going to say that I really should save my money.”

Eddie’s smile is slightly nervous, but there’s a hopeful tinge to it that Steve can only assume means what he thinks it does (hopes it does).

“Leaves me with more to spend on the Gremlins, right?” he shrugs.

Eddie beams. “Glad to know we’re on the same page, Harrington.”

also, if you haven’t heard it recently: Alice, YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE 🤩

[mikeywayarchive]

The Way brothers performing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania // Aug 29th 2022 // Steve Cerf

[axelsthoughtss]

So I remember Dunk talking about the infamous 'August 22 filming' scene. He said that what they did during the filming was out of their (JD) limits and that it was something they have never done before.

I guess my question is do you think we have seen it already? I assume he was talking about a sex scene based on how they described it. And well, they have showed so many already.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Frances Marsalis and Louise Thaden (in cockpit), as they brought their plane to the ground at Roosevelt Field, August 22, 1932, after breaking the women's endurance record of 196 hours and 6 minutes.

Photo: Associated Press

[fjordfolk]

being part of dog health fb groups is great because it really broadens your horizons and gives a lot of context across breeds and teaches a lot of nuance in interpretation

and sometimes it lets you go 'holy heck im not in your breed but if i were i wouldnt touch ur programme w a 10 foot pole and a kite'

[fromdarzaitoleeza]

Who understands loneliness better than the moon?

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

NOFX - The Brews

[beearcheops]

Drv3 family trees (or my best attempt)(minus the Monokubs because I’m not doing that to myself)

Yeahhhh, guess who got bored

I mainly just used find on page to find out so this may be not 100% accurate (but if you think I’m gonna read all ftes,date tickets,utdp and drs events, you’re wrong)

anyways, here’s the key

Circle means Female, Square means Male and a question mark means idk if they are related or not (or something idk I just explain when it comes up)

all family trees are under cut cuz it’s long

First things first, Shuichi’s tree was probably the easiest to make for me since all the info was in his ftes. The only thing that I struggled with was shuichi saying “my uncle and his wife” which is a very weird way to say it (like bud, you could’ve said aunt in law and at least have some people understand it. Maybe idk family trees make my head hurt) but oh well

Then there’s Kaede! Her family tree is relatively simple but I also need to mention that if the character in question never mentions their family, I’m just going to assume that they have just 2 parents (in which I’m coining as the “normalcy law of assuming” I guess, I couldn’t think of a better name)

speaking of which…

Tsumugi (I’m pretty sure) never mention any family members, no matter how much I search (and before you mention her love hotel event, I didn’t read any of the cast’s love hotel events for both my sanity and happiness) so I just assuming that she has 2 parents

Remember when I said that I would explain the question mark?

well, here, it means that the mom may be not the same for all of children (at least in this scenario) (I mean rantaro did said most of his sisters are stepsisters, also yeah, the circle with 12 on represent his 12 sisters because I’m not putting all 12 of them in the image)

Next one up,Tenko! Surprisingly, the normalcy law of assuming doesn’t apply to tenko, why?, because she mentions her parents in one of her ftes! (I don’t remember which one but I do know that she mentioned them) so yeah, just a small simple family tree

Now for Himiko, unlike Tenko, Himiko never mentions her family (unless her master is her dad in which I- what.) while the Danganronpa wiki states that she has a mom, I (personally) couldn’t find any evidence of that at all so I’m not sure where in the world they found that information (I’m serious, where in the fuck she says this?!?!?!!?! Because its certainly not in her ftes,date tickets,utdp events or drs events, so where is it?!?!??!) (I’m going insane) so yeah

UPDATE: thanks to @reblogablename, I now know where Himiko mentions her mom, it’s in the first mass panic debate

Uhh so according to my notes, Miu has parents but I don’t know where I found that information (like did I find it in her wiki page or ftes, or somewhere else completely? I’m not completely sure where but I’m gonna trust my notes here)

To call Keebo’s family tree interesting could be a understatement, this is a line. Other than that, there’s not much to say about it, it’s just keeb and his professor/dad (also I want to mention that I’m pretty sure that Professor Idabashi is the only named family member in v3 which is odd but oh well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Due to Kokichi being Kokichi, I don’t know if he has parents or not so I’m pulling the normalcy law of assuming card here

meanwhile the little question mark represents his older brother mentioned in his ftes, and since Kokichi lies, he might have a brother or not

While Maki has not met her parents (if I remember correctly in the ftes), she must come from somewhere (also please ignore the weird writing in this section/ryoma’s section, I dead ass forgot about the both of them sorry)

Ryoma does have parents, well dead parents but still parents

(I’m going insane)

Korekiyo’s family tree, like Shuichi’s, was relatively easy to make, not much to mention here I think (other than the whole incest thing but I don’t want to think about it)

Kaito,Kaito, Kaito, why were you the hardest person to write about (no seriously, why was it so hard?!??!) anyways, not much to say than kaito never talks about his parents so idk what happened to them

We’re in the final stretch! Kirumi never mentions her family sooo to the normalcy law of assuming corner for you!

Now for Gonta, while he does mention his family, he doesn’t specific any family members so another one in the normalcy law of assuming list

And FINALLY, angie has the same thing as gonta where she mention her family, she doesn’t specified what family members she has so yet again, the normalcy law of assuming shows up

aaaaand thats everyone in drv3 (minus the Monokubs because of no) family trees, but feel free to correct me if anything is wrong cuz I know for a fact that I missed at least one thing (*cough**cough* Himiko *cough**cough* ) anyways enjoy :3

[msbarrows]

GDI, once again I thought I was just a day or two behind and yeah, NO. Try almost a week. I blame BG3, CP77 and NMS for bludgeoning my brain and dragging it off into a locked room full of shiny content.

Reconstructing what I can remember since the last post on the 21st, didn't do much apart from cooking meals:

Aug 22 - Made fettuccine noodles from scratch (go me!) and froze half for a future meal. Served it for supper topped with a ground pork based meat sauce and chopped green onions.

Aug 23 - Baked a big pan of zucchini bread. Made a salad, oven fries, and fish burgers for supper.

Aug 24 - Cooked a couple of hot Italian sausages and served them with buttered boiled potatoes, yellow beans, and fried zucchini slices.

Aug 25 - Cooked a couple of hamburger patties and had them with french fries and corn on the cob.

Aug 26 - Went for a walk. Ran a load of laundry. Grabbed the last of the premade pizzas out of the freezer for supper.

[kounn]

[sugarpopss]

November 30th, 1942

This is very much inspired by that post thats like 'remember how Bucky said he enlisted so Steve wouldn't worry about him'. I just couldn't stop thinking about Bucky getting his draft letter and being so worried about people worrying about him. This draws heavily from the lore developed in the chat with @bucknastysbabe , inculding but not limited to: Rebeccas food thing, George Barnes the WWI vet who died from a medical problem caused by his time in the amry, Steve and Rebecca being close, Ma Barnes being one of the kindest people in the world and a midwestern girlie...etc etc. Sources for the bits of research I did for this fic are here and here.

November 30th, 1942

In 1942, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Bucky got a letter. He saw it when he got home from the docks, slightly crumpled between Rebecca’s algebra and geography books on the kitchen counter. It had gotten a little damp in the mailing process and was stuck to the front of a letter to his mother, from her own mother back in Iowa. He didn’t think too much of it-he was too exhausted to think much of anything. Unloading crates from ships was far from the worst work in the world, but it sure did zap his energy and fill his sinuses with dust and dirt and smoke. Some of the old timers-guys who claimed to remember striking for a 5 cent raise-liked to joke that pretty soon ‘pretty boy Barnes’ would get to know the sort of back pain that went hand-in-hand with a lifetime of hauling cargo, and that would trump exhaustion every time. 

Bucky always laughed it off. They were just joking around, and he’d take any ache in the world if it meant being able to take care of his family, anyway. Even if his Ma kept bringing up trade schools that weren’t too far or too expensive, and Steve was champing at the bit to join the military, Bucky was fine right where he was. He was just fine in the apartment he grew up in, working hard, flirting with the girls running telegrams in the harbormaster's office, walking Rebecca home from school when he got off in time. He got fantasy novels from the library with Clark Gable knights and Lana Turner princesses on the covers; He boxed on the weekends and was always a good sport; He caught Rebecca in the short hallway connecting their bedrooms every morning and gave her a noogie; He went to the cinema with Steve when they both had a little change in their pockets and flicked popcorn kernels at each other like they were kids. 

All that to say-Bucky was doing perfectly fine. He wasn’t raring to make a name for himself or see some great bloody glory. He definitely wasn’t interested in signing up for the war. The picture of his father on the mantel, clean shaven in an army uniform from twenty years ago, kicked the sense back into him whenever he thought about it. If the photograph of the man Bucky could barely remember didn’t work, the urn next to it surely did. 

And all of these things were reasons why, when he unstuck the damp mail from his sisters schoolbooks, the bottom just about dropped out of his stomach. The ink was a little smeared from getting wet, but still perfectly legible: for him, with the selective service system logo stamped right on the front. 

It was like the entire apartment tilted, rocked like a seesaw and threw him completely off balance. Without even thinking, Bucky stuffed the letter into his pocket. He didn’t want to look at it, think about it, deal with it. Whatever it said-as if there was any question as to its contents-he would worry about later. Preferably not standing in the middle of the kitchen in his grimy work clothes, whale eyed and frightfully pale.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The letter remained stuffed deep in Buckys pocket until after supper. Bathed, comfortably full and bone deep tired, he was usually out like a light after working a full day. But instead of passing out underneath the quilt-a gift from the elderly widow two floors up, after he’d spent the summer of ‘35 bringing up her mail and groceries and painting over the water damage on her kitchen ceiling-he fished the letter out from the pants strewn on the floor and just…held it. Looked at it. Turned it over, looked at where his address had been smudged a little by the damp. It was definitely for him; no mistake there. His full name was right there on the address line, middle initial and everything. 

Maybe it was completely mundane! Every guy had to sign up for selective service-tons of them probably got letters about misspelled words or unchecked boxes. Maybe he’d written something down incorrectly back when he had filled out the forms. 18-year-olds were stupid, after all, and he probably hadn’t been paying that much attention to the information he was putting down. That was most likely it; He’d put his birthday down as October 3rd instead of March 10th by accident, or initialed something that was supposed to be a signature or vice versa. So what if it’d been four years since he filled out that paperwork? Tiny errors like that were probably pretty low priority for the selective service, especially after America joined the war. 

He was just going to open the letter and see what they needed him to fix or resign. 

He opened the letter. He read it once, then twice, then three times. 

There was no problem with the paperwork he’d filled out at 18. 

He didn’t need to resign any forms or recheck any boxes.  

He did need to report to the local selective service board the following Tuesday. 

Oh. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. 

Buckys first thought wasn’t ‘I don’t want to join the military’. It wasn’t even ‘I’m scared’. Buckys very first thought was for his family. He couldn’t be in the military! He was an important part of the household! The Barnes had only recently edged back into a relatively comfortable financial situation because of the combined incomes Bucky and his Ma brought in, and someone had to be around to look after Rebecca-as much as she’d protest and whine that she was 16, she didn’t need to be looked after-when their Ma couldn’t. Someone needed to haul Steve out of fights and into dance halls, because yes, Steve was as good as family, would’ve been even if Rebecca hadn’t declared he had ‘adopted brother rights’ years ago. 

Buckys second thought was ‘I don’t want to join the military’, because he didn’t. He’d never wanted to, never even seriously entertained the idea. There had already been a Barnes man in a war and it had destroyed him; robbed a good man of his peace and his health, robbed Buckys mother of a husband and himself and Rebecca of a father. Hell, Rebecca had never even met their father-he had died two months before she was born. A couple of old photographs, a ceramic urn, and a watch and wedding band with no hand to wear them were all she knew of the man. 

It made Buckys stomach turn to think about leaving his family for the thing that had put his father in the grave before 40. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning he started to think. He couldn’t tell his Ma he’d been drafted-he certainly couldn’t tell Rebecca or Steve. They’d all worry too much for him. The downside to having loved ones was that as much as you loved them, they also loved you. And loving someone meant worrying for them when they were about to get scooped out of their life with less than a months notice. 

It’d be less worrying if he'd just enlisted, if he had made a choice, even a rash, ill-advised one. At least that would imply he had some sort of excitement or confidence in joining the military. At least that would imply that he was ready, that nobody needed to worry about him because Bucky himself wasn’t worried or scared or hesitant. 

That was the thought that he chewed on all day. Chewed on it so much, in fact, that he barely chewed anything else, including his supper. And that was strange behavior for Bucky. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Rebecca had asked him. It sounded incredibly blunt, but to be entirely fair, she had first made a frantic gesture towards the peas on her plate with her head-because Rebecca was not eating peas that week, and if she could switch their plates without their Ma noticing she could avoid a stern look and a ‘clean plates club’ lecture-and then kicked him under the table when her head tossing got no response. 

Their Ma was looking at him, too. If there was one thing the Barnes siblings were, it was chatty, and although Rebecca had been blathering on about how a girl in her geography class had gotten in trouble for wearing lipstick, Bucky had been almost entirely silent. And he’d barely touched his food even though he wasn’t on the same legume strike as his sister. 

He shrugged, trying to play it cool, casual and calm. He took a bite of his food-the peas were fine even if they came from a can, because their Ma was an excellent cook. Rebecca was just weird about food sometimes-to give himself time to think. 

He settled on “I can’t walk you home next week.” 

Rebecca sighed in that ‘God, you’re all so uptight and dramatic’ way that teenagers do. “I don’t need you to walk me home. I’m not a kid, I know how to get home from school.” 

Their Ma gave him another curious look, though. “Did you make plans?” she asked. “With Steve? With a girl?”

She didn’t sound upset, just…curious. It was odd, after all, for Bucky to not want to walk Rebecca home. He tried very hard to align his hours at the docks with her school schedule. It was important to him, to make sure she was safe and that nobody bothered her. 

“Sort of.” He replied. 

He knew that wasn’t a very good answer, and his Mas face reflected it. He’d never in one million years chose some dame over his sister, and Steve was as good as Rebeccas second brother. He was more likely to just join in on the walk than make plans over it. Hell, half of the time they did things as a trio-things like pooling Christmas and birthday money to go to Coney Island, an outing upon which the then teen boys had ridden the Cyclone, Steve had vomited into a public trash can, and Rebecca had proven that she was somehow remarkable at darts despite never having played before in her life. 

His Ma raised her eyebrow. God, he was bad at lying, bad at keeping secrets, bad at misleading people. 

“I-” He met his Mas eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, steeled himself. “It’ll be a few days next week, actually. I enlisted and I’m reporting to induction on Tuesday.” 

The world didn’t end once he said it. A small part of him-the part that reminded Bucky he hadn’t lied to his Ma since he was 17 and she asked if he had cigarettes in his bedroom, and even then he’d come clean about two hours later-had expected something huge and dramatic to happen. Maybe both his mother and sister would drop their forks and snap their heads up, maybe a police siren or fire alarm would go off somewhere nearby, maybe lightning would strike the building. 

But none of that happened. Rebecca continued pushing her food around her plate. “No you didn’t.” She scoffed.

Their Ma didn’t dismiss his statement as a joke, but her expression was difficult to read. “You did?” She asked, her voice stern and level. 

Bucky kept going. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I was just thinking about it and it seemed like a good idea. I stopped at the recruiting center last week. I…” 

He trailed off. This wasn’t a perfectly thought through lie, but it felt like a necessary one. 

“Yeah.”

Rebeccas fork actually did clatter to her plate once he finished talking. She looked up at her brother, agape with bright pink spots at the high points of her cheeks. 

“You’re fucking joking! You can’t just leave!” 

“Rebecca Grace!” Their Ma snapped, though it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it. 

Rebecca shot up from the table, her eyes-bright blue like Buckys, like their late fathers-welling up with tears. “No! You can’t leave, that’s not fair!” 

With that she stormed off, the slam of her bedroom door in the small apartment sounding like a gunshot. 

Bucky swallowed and looked down at his food. He wasn’t hungry anymore. 

“James.” 

He looked up at his Ma. Guilt immediately began to eat at him. Guilt for the lie, guilt for having to leave them, guilt for everything his Ma had been through and would go through in the future. 

“What branch?” 

He swallowed again. The guilt was crawling up his throat like vomit. He wanted to admit it was a lie, to say he was scared and didn’t want to go and didn’t know what to do. But there was nothing to be done. All he could do was help the people who loved him to not worry so much. 

“Army. Like dad.” 

She raised her eyebrows. They barely ever spoke about George Barnes military career. Not to say that they never spoke about Bucky and Rebeccas father at all-he’d been the love of their Mas life, she had plenty of stories about him. But they didn’t talk about his time in Europe. Bucky had always gotten the impression that his father hadn’t spoken much about his time in Europe when he was still alive, anyway. 

“Your father was drafted. He didn’t choose the army.” 

He shrugged. 

She sighed and put her fork down, picked it back up, put it down again. 

“I don’t-” She sighed again. “I can’t tell you what to do. You’re a grown man and you get to make your own choices.” 

Bucky didn’t feel like a grown man at that moment. He felt like a little boy trying to convince his mother that he wasn’t afraid of the dark. 

“Do you genuinely want to join the military?”  

The earnest concern in the question was what broke him. He took a very deep breath and met his Mas eyes, blue on brown. She had asked like there was any changing it. Even if he had voluntarily enlisted, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it after the fact. 

“No. I-I…the letter came yesterday and I have to go on Tuesday and I-.” Bucky cut himself off, feeling something far too much like tears in his eyes, something far too much like a sob beginning to choke up his throat. 

“Jamie, sweetheart…” She stood from the table and opened her arms to him, a hug that he gladly accepted. Three inches taller than his mother or not, 22 years old or not, there was nothing more comforting than his Mas embrace. 

“It’ll be alright, Jamie.” 

By god, he hoped so. 

[mikeywayarchive]

Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA // Aug 29th 2022 // Steve Cerf